


Protect, Destroy

by kaibasetos



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-02
Updated: 2015-10-02
Packaged: 2018-04-24 10:20:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4915822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaibasetos/pseuds/kaibasetos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one's ever hated anyone like I hate the bastard who hurt you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Protect, Destroy

**Author's Note:**

> **Trigger warning for mentions of past abuse.**
> 
> I wanted to put that out there before I even began these notes, because this fic deals heavily in the abuse Kaiba suffered from Gozaburo. I've written about Jounouchi facing the issue before, but I've always wanted to write about his initial discovery of what happened and the discussion with Kaiba that would follow, especially in the context of an established relationship between the two of them, so here it is. This fic flows off of my own headcanons, namely that the abuse Kaiba suffered was more severe than we're explicitly shown -- supported by [this manga panel](http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/yugioh/images/f/fd/YGO-040_School_program.png/revision/latest?cb=20130607021538) \-- and that physical abuse was involved, leaving him scarred. It was also heavily influenced by the poem ["Bloodtrail Loathing"](http://lavenderliterature.tumblr.com/post/130172882199/i-thought-i-knew-hate-like-the-back-of-my-hand-i) by Ruthy T, and the quote in the summary is an excerpt from said poem. I honestly got way too caught up in the emotion of this one because fics like this are actually very important to me for personal reasons. I hope y'all enjoy it anyway, though! It's a hell of a ride.

The first time Jounouchi hears of Gozaburo’s transgressions is the first time he feels sickening hatred truly overwhelm him.

He doesn’t hear about it from Kaiba himself. It’s from some trashy tabloid article that digs too deeply and too graphically into Kaiba’s background, pondering about the motivations that made the man. Jounouchi doesn’t want to believe what it says at first. Nevertheless, he sits in his apartment and reads it over and over again, chain smoking, hands shaking. He runs sweaty fingers through his hair and curses to himself. The word _fuck_ feels particularly good in his mouth.

He doesn’t want to believe it, and yet it all pieces together. The way Kaiba’s jaw and fists clench at any passing mention of his adoptive father’s name. The way Kaiba shuts down when faced with intimacy, like he’s protecting himself from something unknown and dangerous. The way Kaiba braces his shoulders so firmly and stubbornly against the feeling of his past bearing down upon them. The way Kaiba still refuses to do something as simple as take off his shirt in front of Jounouchi even after all this time, his eyes aslant like he’s hiding something more gruesome than his body.

Kaiba’s obsession. Kaiba’s anger. Kaiba’s pain. Kaiba’s unique way of biting back at damn near anything that dares to love him.

Of course Gozaburo hurt him. It makes so much sense Jounouchi can’t believe he never figured it out on his own. He curses again, eyes bloodshot, as he covers his face with his hands. He feels a rage unlike anything he’s ever known brewing deep within him, overcoming him, turning him into a weapon. Everything Mokuba has ever said about Kaiba rolls through him like a tidal wave and singes his nerve endings like volcanic eruption.

Kaiba wasn’t always this way. Gozaburo made him this way. Gozaburo twisted him into a crude and feral labyrinth, a mockery of himself, a fortress of strength and suffering built to hide what little of his fragile heart managed to survive.

He was alive and vivid and vibrant before Gozaburo killed him.

Jounouchi burns the tabloid and punches his knuckles raw against his bedroom wall before he goes to sleep.

He can’t speak to Kaiba for a few days. He can’t speak to anyone. His phone continues to pile up missed calls and text messages and he continues to smoke, leaning against the railing of his balcony and thinking over every interaction he’s had with Kaiba. Every time Kaiba has flinched away from his touch even when it was easy and soft. Every time Kaiba has given an inch and let him in, only to turn to barbed wire and bitter shame directly afterward. Every time Kaiba has hidden something from him, has lashed out, has refused his help in favor of licking his wounds in silence. It explains everything perfectly, wraps it up in a neat little package tied with a nice ribbon, but he hates it vehemently. He hates it all.

He wishes he could destroy Gozaburo for what he did. Destroy him the way he destroyed Kaiba. Instead, he smashes his mirror into shards with a curled fist and a sound that mimics sobbing, then calmly bandages his hand by fluorescent kitchen light.

The glass breaking relieves him, but it’s not nearly as satisfying.

There is a knocking on his apartment door on Jounouchi’s fourth night of solitude. He ignores it until he hears the faint murmur of Kaiba’s voice on the other side, and his lungs feel full of those shards of glass. Every breath he takes is sharp and dangerous and filled with abhorrence for the hulking silhouette of a man he's never even met. When he opens the door, he moves back automatically to let Kaiba step in and close the door behind him.

“Jounouchi,” Kaiba says, with something that sounds suspiciously like disapproval on his tongue. “What’s going on? Everyone has been-- what happened to you?” He interrupts himself as his eyes catch the bandages around Jounouchi’s hand, but Jounouchi can’t be bothered with pleasantries right now. Everything that has been boiling inside of him is at the edge of his skin, crawling like a tangible creature, and it bursts from his throat of its own volition.

“Tell me it isn’t true.”

“What?”

Kaiba’s brow furrows, and Jounouchi is seething but his voice is full of agony.

“Tell me it isn’t true. Tell me Gozaburo didn’t do that to you. Say it to my fuckin’ face, Kaiba.”

He can see the instant his words register because it’s written across Kaiba’s expression. He can see the light leave Kaiba’s eyes, and it’s just more fodder for his anger, flame licking up every inch of his body. Just another reminder that Gozaburo is still lurking in Kaiba's shadow.

“I see you've read the article as well. If you want me to leave, I understand,” Kaiba says, his tone lifeless, like his obligation to leave is an inevitability he not only prepared for but expected. It gnaws at Jounouchi, devours him with anguish.

“No.” Jounouchi shifts, his fingers flexing and his teeth grinding. “I don’t want you to leave. I just want you to tell me it isn’t fuckin’ true.”

“I can’t do that, Jounouchi.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m not in the business of denying my past.”

Kaiba’s voice takes on an edge, a stirring of resentment that Jounouchi can tell isn’t towards him but focused somewhere else. On the universe, perhaps, for bringing this upon him. On the writer who dug up his monsters from the grave where they lay and let them set their fangs against his throat again, all for the purpose of having a story that would sell. On Gozaburo himself, the most intimidating monster of them all.

“So it is,” Jounouchi says. “It is true.” The glass in his lungs pierces skin and bleeds him and he feels loathing in the red of his vision.

“Why does it _matter_?” Kaiba is louder now, his hands clenched into fists the way they are any time the subject of Gozaburo is brought up, and even worse than avoiding Jounouchi he’s forcing direct eye contact. He looks like power stitched together by pain, like a story of triumph where triumph was the only way he could survive. “What impact does it have, Jounouchi? He’s dead and I have kept on living despite him. Nothing about him is relevant to who I am now.”

“ _Everything_ about him is relevant to who you are now, Kaiba,” Jounouchi spits out in disbelief, and when Kaiba immediately reaches for the doorknob he grabs his wrist. “No, don’t do this. Don’t fuckin’ walk out on me like you always do when you can't bear to face yourself. Listen to me.”

“Why should I?” Kaiba’s tone would sound absolutely acidic if it weren’t marred by fear, some kind of primal fear Jounouchi can’t decipher. He drops his hand nonetheless and Jounouchi grabs his shoulders tightly, looks him in the face, stares him down.

“It matters because he fuckin’ _hurt you_ , Kaiba,” Jounouchi says, and though he tries his best to keep his voice level he can’t help the wrath and protection that entwine themselves into one and thread through every syllable. He can’t help the way furious and aching tears prickle uncomfortably at the backs of his eyes. “It matters because he hurt you, he fuckin’ ravaged you and you’ve been pickin’ up the pieces by yourself, all this fuckin’ time, when I could have helped. I could have done somethin’ and I didn't even know.”

“It isn’t your duty to do anything. This is my burden to bear.” The words are frigid cold but it’s just yet another defense mechanism that Jounouchi knows how to barrel through.

“It doesn’t _have to be_ ,” Jounouchi’s voice raises involuntarily and he almost shakes Kaiba, so consumed with feeling he can barely think straight. “You’ve been goin’ through your whole goddamn life thinkin’ you had to handle everything alone but you don’t have to, okay? I want to-- fuck, I just want to be here for you. I know it’s not my duty, but it’s my fuckin’ choice. Just give me that choice, Kaiba. Just let me choose to help someone I love.”

Kaiba is silent, the anger in his gaze slowly waning. He looks, instead, like he’s trying to figure Jounouchi out, like he’s trying to piece together a puzzle of emotion he still can’t really understand. That, in itself, is painful. “Love,” he repeats, finally. “Someone you love.”

“Yeah. Yeah, okay, I-- I love you, Kaiba, and it fuckin’ tears me up to think you’ve been through so much, so goddamn much, and I never knew, I could’ve--” His voice breaks and he squints his eyes shut, gripping the fabric of Kaiba’s shirt and trying to regain control of himself.

“Jounouchi,” Kaiba says, and it feels like every shred of emotion Kaiba has ever felt towards him is packed into that one murmur of his name, hitting him like a punch to the gut. He doesn’t even have time to recover before Kaiba is kissing him and although it’s simple it feels life-changing, full of gratitude and something gently passionate, brimming with an outpouring of feeling Kaiba isn’t able to verbalize. He pulls Kaiba into him and holds the kiss for as long as he can before he breaks away with a jerk of his head and a sharp intake of breath that hurts his chest. He still doesn't let go.

“I’m not angry at you, you know?” Jounouchi says at length, staring down at his carpet. “It’s him. I want to hurt him. I want to hurt him so badly for doin’ this to you and I can’t, I fuckin’ can’t. I can’t undo what he did and I can’t do anything but watch the way it buries you and it makes me feel so fuckin’ _helpless_.” His voice wavers unbidden on the last word. His fury is dwindling down to a sort of hopelessness, the sensation of reaching out in the dark for something you can’t even see.

“You will never be able to fix this, Jounouchi.” Kaiba sounds more subdued now, but it still hurts to hear him, the phantom of trauma in him.

“I know,” Jounouchi responds immediately, and there’s a sort of aching in it. He doesn’t want to accept it, but he has to swallow it anyway, taste the regret on his tongue. It tastes sour and venomous. “I know I can’t fix it. All I’m askin’ is that you give me the chance to carry some of that awful weight too. You shouldn’t have to do it on your own.”

Kaiba is quiet for a long while, and when he eventually lays his hand on Jounouchi’s forearm he squeezes a bit too hard. Jounouchi knows he won’t say he appreciates it, but that’s what it means anyway.

“If you’re certain--”

“Never been more certain of anything in my life,” Jounouchi interrupts, and Kaiba’s grip on him tightens again.

“If you’re certain,” Kaiba starts again, speaking slow and careful, “then I’ll do my best to give you that chance. But old habits die hard, Jounouchi, and I don’t make promises I’m incapable of keeping.”

Jounouchi laughs, weak and worn, and finally meets his eyes again. “I don’t give a shit, Kaiba, as long as I can do somethin’. I don’t give a shit if it kills me, as long as you let me help you. Nothing is more important to me right now, I wanna make that crystal fuckin’ clear, alright?”

Kaiba is giving him a strange look, like he’s seeing him for the very first time all over again, like a realization is dawning on him.

“You meant it,” he says, and his voice is just as drawn-out and calculated, “when you said you loved me.”

“Of course I meant it.”

Kaiba looks away from him and doesn’t say anything more, just keeps his hand resting where it is on Jounouchi’s arm, his nails digging into Jounouchi’s skin only slightly. Not enough to hurt but enough to keep himself grounded, stable. Jounouchi can almost hear the deafening roar of his mind.

Kaiba stays with him that night. He doesn’t mention the broken mirror or bring up Jounouchi’s injury again, although Jounouchi is sure he makes the connection between the two easily enough, and Jounouchi is thankful for that. He doesn’t want to have to explain it, doesn’t want to have to explain the destructive force of compassion inside of him that even the word _love_ can’t convey accurately.

The fact is, he can’t change the past. What he can do, however, is make damn sure that no one ever hurts Kaiba again.

Not without answering to him first.


End file.
